AMARILLO, TEXAS -- While sunglasses and sun screen might be the obvious solutions for fair skinned humans, they're impractical for horses. But protections from the sun is just as important for horses because those animals with little or no pigment around their eyes have a 90 percent greater risk of developing cancer.
The best way to protect a horse from this type of cancer is to have them tattooed. Thursday, the Timber Creek Veterinary Hospital brought in a local tattoo artist to give the horses some ink.
"So what we do is put a little black line around the eye... the black will keep the eye from getting or at least greatly decrease the incidence of squamous cell carcinoma," said Dr. Gregg Veneklasen, DVM.
The horses got a little something extra this time around, with a pink ribbon for breast cancer tattooed on their cheek.
Veneklasen, said this is nothing new, and he's been doing it for years at Timber Creek.
"It's not that much different from football players putting black under their eyes for the lights, the black absorbs the light."
The horse put under with anesthesia while the tattooing is done, and Veneklasen said they've had a 100 percent success rate at Timber Creek, "We've not had any horses that we've ever tattooed get cancer."
According to HuntSeatHorses.com the American Paint Horse Association began accepted the procedure in the 1980's. The Colorado State University reviewed the records of 26 horses tattooed between 1980 and 2007, and found only two horses of the 22 they followed up on, developed ocular or periocular squamous cell carcinoma after their tattoos.
